Can love survive in a place where there is no love? That is one of the questions that Brian Azzarello’s and Marcelo Frusin’s new monthly, Loveless, will try to answer. Set in the South in 1867, two years into the post- Civil War Reconstruction era, the story follows a former Confederate soldier turned outlaw and his wife. With the number of comic book Westerns on the rise, Loveless is perhaps the most ambitious, asking readers to jump on the saddle and follow outlaws through an ugly time in the country’s history. I caught up with Azzarello to speak about Loveless, Westerns, 100 Bullets, and playing ball.

Ernie Estrella: Sometimes we can forget that Westerns took place during the Civil War. Usually it's these saloon battles and standoffs...

Brian Azzarello: Right.

EE: You’ve stated you wanted to go for an Italian Western feel. I think The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is my favorite Sergio Leone film, and Western for that matter, because of the Civil War stuff. I know that is the back-story of Loveless...

BA: Yeah, that's the backbone. But it's also pretty important because of the circumstances and times that drove these people to be the way they are. We'll deal with the Civil War more through flashbacks, but Reconstruction is where it takes place, sometimes referred to as the Second Civil War.

EE: Now that was a pretty ugly time for the country and for the government with a torn country.

BA: Yep.

EE: What about slavery or the continental railroad, are we going to see any of those themes?

BA: Slavery, yeah, well the aftermath of slavery. The South's reaction to the free man was not good.

EE: Now, are we going to see just the story of Wes and Ruth Cutter, or will we get into the peripheral characters, too, considering how you treat the narrative in 100 Bullets?

BA: Yeah, this is a bit more straightforward, though, than 100 Bullets. I'm dealing with two, probably three main characters, but it's going to be a huge cast. With 100 Bullets I move around the focus constantly. We're not going to be doing that with this.

EE: So it's like a road drama?

BA: Yeah. It's a road drama with flashbacks, but the road is a dusty trail and the Chevy's a horse. [Laughs]

EE: So we're traveling from Missouri to the west, and this couple is trying to get away from the North-South battle?

BA: Well… [Pauses] There's some unfinished business in Missouri because it opens up a few years after the war. Reconstruction is in full bloom. People's land has been taken away from them. Carpetbagging is pretty prevalent.

EE: I’ll apologize for my cloudy history. Was this Western frontier being explored, or were there any territories at this point?

BA: No, no. There were territories at that point, but it certainly wasn't as widely populated, at least not the center. California was pretty good; Arizona, down through Texas was pretty good, the Northwest, not so much.

EE: You must have done a lot of research for this?

BA: Oh yeah! I have to do a lot of research. You have to.

EE: I didn't know how much of this was born out of pure interests of the history or the genre.

BA: Well, even with the interests, you’ve got to do the research so you don't come off like an idiot. There are people who read this stuff looking for you to make a mistake.

EE: Do you go to the National Library?

BA: That's good. The Internet's great. [Laughs] The Web is fantastic for history. It's not just for porn.

EE: Who will be the peripheral characters in Loveless?

BA: The first arc or two, okay, let's see. Well in the first arc I think you'll just about meet every character that is important. Or if you don't meet them they will be talked about.

EE: This series might renew interest in your last attempt at a Western, El Diablo.

BA: Well that would be nice. [Laughs]

EE: I re-read it recently and it was an unconventional type of Western, almost an urban legend kind of feel, like your Cage mini-series.

BA: It was funny – El Diablo, when I was working on it, it dawned on me we were doing a noir spaghetti Western. It’s not really a Western. This story was not traditionally about what other Westerns were. That's when I wanted to do Loveless. This is fertile ground that I would like to explore–

EE: So initially you went into El Diablo with the intention to do a traditional Western but

BA: I didn't realize it when I was writing it, but then I realized ‘Waitaminute, I'm not writing a Western, I'm writing another crime thriller.’ And at that point I thought, ‘This could have legs, we could do something with this.’ This is something I'd like to explore. Let's stretch and combine these two genres, and hopefully make something new. But for whatever reason, El Diablo didn't sell very well, which immediately, because it couldn't sell, it was because it was a Western. So I was unable to do another Western for a while. I wanted to do a book about an outlaw. Not a sheriff. Following the bad guy.

EE: How long is the opening arc?

BA: Five issues.

EE: And in total, is it a four-year run?

BA: Yeah that's about 48 issues. Four years.

EE: So that's going to end around the same time as 100 Bullets?

BA: Will it? Where are we on that?

EE: Issue sixty-something. So less than forty issues left.

BA: Yeah, we got about three years left on 100 Bullets. Maybe I should just make Loveless as three years, too, and ride off into the sunset with both of them gone.

EE: Are you going to feel out how the public responds to it?

BA: Naw, na-ah. I can't worry about that. Or at least let it affect the story.

EE: If a series doesn’t take, some writers will rewrite it to wrap things up.

BA: I would probably just leave it undone.

EE: This reunites you with Marcelo Frusin. For those who missed your guys' run on Hellblazer, describe the intangibles that he brings that no one else does.

BA: There was a real palpable sense of menace. You know his art has that sort of you're-about-to-get-smacked quality, but you don't know where the punch is going to come from.

EE: So this is definitely what you wanted to have on every page?

BA: Oh yeah, I want that on every page. Marcelo's artwork keeps readers off balance. They don't get comfortable. It’s great looking stuff but it keeps you on edge.

EE: Do you know of any other work he's done? I know that some of Eduardo Risso's work with Carlos Trillo is beginning to be reprinted, but does Marcelo have something in his past?

BA: Everyone's got something in their past. [Laughs] Not that I am aware of, I know that he was Eduardo's assistant.

EE: Will he be the co-creator of Loveless like Eduardo is with 100 Bullets?

BA: Oh Yeah! Absolutely.

EE: I didn't know if he was going to do the whole run.

BA: Well, we're going to have fill-in artists but he's the co-creator. It’s funny. Big name creators want to draw guys on horses. [Laughs]

EE: Now normally when the preview artwork came out and we saw only Marcelo's inked art, it was awesome. I would have been content with just his black and white work, but when you see Trish Mulvihill's colors, it gives it that final, open landscaped look of spaghetti Westerns.

BA: I agree with you, it does look good.

» PART 2 (of 5): AT THE GRIND HOUSE